Longing, have I become a burden
Original Marathi from the Tukaram Gatha · About Sant Tukaram
मराठी मूळ
कांहीं चिंतेविण । नाहीं उपजत सीण ॥1॥
तरी हा पडिला विसर । माझा तुह्मां जाला भार ॥ध्रु.॥
आली कांहीं तुटी । गेली सुटोनियां गांठी ॥2॥
तुका ह्मणे घरीं । बहु बैसले रिणकरी॥3॥
Tukaram Gatha (Marathi Wikisource)
English Translation
Anxiety does not arise without some cause for worry. So have You forgotten me? Have I become a burden? Has some rift appeared? Has the knot between us come undone? Says Tuka, perhaps many creditors have gathered in Your house.
We ask forgiveness for any inaccuracies in rendering Tukaram ji’s original Marathi.
In Plain Words
Weariness does not rise up without some cause for worry. So have you forgotten me? Have I become a burden to you? Has some break come between us? Has the knot that bound us slipped loose? Tuka says: perhaps many creditors have gathered in your house.
What it means
Tukaram reads his own distress as evidence: this exhaustion would not have arisen unless something were truly wrong, so he probes for the cause. He runs through the possibilities a worried child imagines, that God has forgotten him, that he has become a load too heavy to carry, that the tie between them has snapped. Each guess names the same fear, that the bond he relies on has come undone. The closing line softens it with the old teasing image of God beset by creditors at home, too pressed to attend to him, keeping the complaint affectionate even as it voices the dread of being let go.
Longing and Separation
Cries from the dark night of the soul: remonstrances, complaints, and desperate yearning.
More in this theme →